Source of Antarctica's Eerie 'Bleeding Glacier' Found

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Antarctica's Dry Valleys are the most arid places on Earth, but underneath their icy soils lies a vast and ancient network of salty, liquid water filled with life, a new study finds.

The Dry Valleys are almost entirely ice-free, except for a few isolated glaciers. Inside the canyons, the climate is extremely dry, cold and windy; researchers have stumbled upon mummified seals in these gorges that are thousands of years old.

The Blood Falls seeps from the end of the Taylor Glacier into Lake Bonney. The tent at left provides a sense of scale for just how big the phenomenon is.Peter Rejcek

Yet there is life in this extreme landscape. For instance, bacteria living under Taylor Glacier stain its snout a deep blood red. The rust-colored brine, called Blood Falls, pours into Lake Bonney in the southernmost of the three largest Dry Valleys. The dramatic colors offer shocking relief to senses overwhelmed by the glaring white ice and dull brown rocks.

Now, for the first time, scientists have traced the water underneath Taylor Glacier to learn more about the mysterious Blood Falls. In the process, the researchers discovered that briny water underlies much of Taylor Valley. The subsurface network connects the valley's scattered lakes, revealing that they're not as isolated as scientists once thought. The findings were published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

"We've learned so much about the dry valleys in Antarctica just by looking at this curiosity," said lead study author Jill Mikucki, a microbiologist at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. "Blood Falls is not just an anomaly, it's a portal to this subglacial world."

Mikucki led an international research team that tested a newly developed airborne electromagnetic sensor in Taylor Valley. The researchers found liquid water underneath the icy soil in Taylor Valley, stretching from the coast to at least 7.5 miles inland.

The water is twice as salty as seawater, the scientists reported. There is also briny water underneath Taylor Glacier as far back as the instrument could detect, about 3 miles up the glacier, the researchers said. Eventually, the ice was too thick for the magnetic field to penetrate.

"This study shows Blood Falls isn't just a weird little seep," Mikucki told Live Science. "It may be representative of a much larger hydrologic network."

Water underneath Taylor Valley could have turned extremely salty in two ways: The brines could be due to freezing and evaporation of larger lakes that once filled the valley. Or, ocean water may have once flooded the canyons, leaving remnants behind as it retreated. The new findings will help researchers pin down the valley's aquatic history.

Dry Valleys are considered one of the closest analogs to Mars that are located on Earth, according to Dawn Sumner, a geobiologist at the University of California, Davis, who was not involved in the study. Similar briny groundwater could have formed on Mars when the planet transitioned from having liquid water to a dry environment.